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Our Military Kids Highlighted at Quicken Loans National

Potomac, Maryland — Our Military Kids was named 2017 Military Charity of the Year by the Tiger Woods Foundation and Quicken Loans National Wednesday, during the QL National golf tournament’s opening events in Potomac, Maryland.

During a lunch, co-hosted by longtime OMK partner, Lockheed Martin, Rick Singer, president and CEO of Tiger Woods Foundation, paid tribute to OMK for helping children cope while their military parents are recovering from war wounds or are deployed.

“A lot of times,” Singer said, “we forget the kids are handling stress and strain as well.”

Billy Hurley III, defending QL National champion, and the only military veteran on the PGA tour, gave advice to military kids in attendance who had received OMK grants for golf. “Keep it fun,” he said. “Playing other sports is important.”

“That’s a great message,” said Linda Davidson, OMK’s executive director. “It speaks to the importance of our program in that children have the opportunity to explore and get involved in a variety of activities.”

Davidson said, “I’m so grateful to the Tiger Woods Foundation and Lockheed Martin, and all those who care for the awesome kids like the ones enjoying this tournament. These are kids who, once empowered, can do anything.”

Serving for Heroes, the fifth annual USTA charity tennis open supporting Our Military Kids, happens, July 21-23, at the Lake Newport Tennis Facility in Reston, Virginia. It’s too late to register for play, but atching and eating great food will be a treat in itself.

For the third consecutive year, most of the tournament’s proceeds will go to Our Military Kids, the nonprofit organization providing support and recognition to children of deployed National Guard and Reserve service members and children of wounded warriors from all service branches. To date, the tournament has hosted more than 600 players and raised more than $35,000 for military families.

This year’s tournament is presented by MVB Mortgage.

“Serving for Heroes is a small way to thank our military families for their service,” said Wilson Paine, the director, who started the tournaments in 2012, with the hope of offering fun competition and a way to raise funds for charity.

A portion of the proceeds will also go to scholarships for summer tennis camps offered by the Reston Tennis Association, which donates the courts for the event.

“This is a tournament for everybody,” Paine said. “We’ll have 115-130 players, ranging in skill level from beginner to some of the best USTA players in the mid-Atlantic region.”

Paine also encourages fans who don’t play to “come watch great tennis” and enjoy a lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., provided by Carrabbas Italian Grill.

 

(For more information, contact Judy McSpadden, Director of Communication, Our Military Kids, at 703-734-6654.)

By Judy McSpadden

 

We’re reticent to look through people’s windows. We might see something we don’t want to see, something that disrupts our equilibrium. When a child is involved, we’re particularly nervous about seeing something that sparks our natural urge to step in, to protect.

On June 6, a group of subject matter experts from the field of military families and wounded warriors took a first step to peer through a window often steeped in shadows. At the first symposium ever sponsored by Our Military Kids, a nonprofit in McLean, Virginia, these clinicians,
researchers, service providers and military families pulled back the curtain to examine the unique lives of the children of wounded warriors.

“These are the kids who have suddenly had to make unique sacrifices in their young lives,” said Linda Davidson, Our Military Kids’ executive director. “Since 9/11, positive steps have been taken toward helping wounded warriors and their caregivers, but injury affects the children too — in dramatic ways. We don’t know the long-term effects, but it’s time to pay attention. It’s a national problem.”

Dr. Stephen Cozza, associate director at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress, and an Army psychiatrist for 25 years, set the stage for last week’s discussion during his keynote address: “Understanding the Needs of Ill and Injured Military Families.”

Dr. Stephen Cozza gives keynote speech at OMK symposium.

According to Dr. Cozza, before 9/11, soldiers were largely unmarried and without kids. Today, 2 million children are assuming military identities and living through experiences not common to other children. A severe injury can spawn feelings of loss, stress and fear for a wounded service member. At the same time, the warrior’s child, more vulnerable and with limited understanding, must deal with similar new realities.

“Combat injuries and associated illness can have a profound effect on families and kids,” said Dr. Cozza.

“While the service member may mourn the loss of an arm, his little boy is mourning the fact Dad can’t play ball like he used to. Their relationship has changed,” said Davidson.

“Injury,” said Dr. Cozza, “is not an event. It’s a process.”

Following Dr. Cozza’s speech, a panel consisting of wounded warrior family members, described numerous issues that unfold during the recovery process. Andrea Sawyer, spouse caregiver of a wounded warrior, talked about her sons, one of whom was born after his dad was injured. “They don’t know what a normal marriage relationship looks like,” she said, referring to how her role as caregiver changed the family dynamic.

Deryn Allen, daughter of a wounded warrior, speaks about the importance of communication.

Jessica Allen, the lunchtime speaker, described how important her children’s presence was to her husband’s long-term recovery; yet,  hospital staff initially did not allow the children in the room while their father was undergoing physical therapy.  As a double leg amputee, it was important to him to have his children cheering him on — being with him to celebrate milestones in his recovery.

Jonathan Pruden, of the Wounded Warrior Project, shares the importance of activities for children.

Deryn Allen, Jessica’s 14-year-old daughter, conveyed the importance of having her mother “talk it out” whenever she had questions about her dad’s injury.

Stories differ for each family. Some children have become secondary caregivers. Some have experienced secondary PTSD. Many have struggled, confused about their parents’ “invisible injuries.” According to Dr. Cozza, negative parenting impacts from PTSD and traumatic brain injury (TBI) can range from detachment to higher levels of violence; parent distraction sometimes leads to child injury.

The symposium’s second panel addressed lessons learned, asking what has worked and what hasn’t for children of injured service members. Dr. William Beardsley, academic chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Children’s Hospital in Boston, and the Gardner Monks Professor of Child Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, described general research about depression and families that he believes should be disseminated throughout the military family sphere.

Panel participants came from organizations, such as the Rand Corporation, the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, and the Military Child Education Coalition. Through these various facets in a prism of care, commonalities emerged during the day.

Lunch speaker, Jessica Allen, spouse and caregiver for wounded warrior, describes the difficult road since her husband’s injury.

Davidson said, “We all agreed on the importance of knowing our peers and of identifying gaps in family-based care.”

Shared lessons learned included a belief in the need for continuity of support, the role of activities and community integration for military kids, and the value of timely data for everyone working in this sphere.

The final panel of the day, moderated by Rosemary Williams, formerly with Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense, shared ideas for moving forward. They deliberated the best role for governmental involvement, the best methods of partnering, and ways to spend dollars more wisely.

Davidson said, “The participants know we need to share our expertise and be better at referring families to each other.”

At the end of the day, all participants appeared enthusiastic about future collaboration for military children.

“What we’re after is a unity of vision,” said Davidson. “Those of us working in the wounded warrior world can use a more integrated focus, more cohesive treatments – call it what you will. Tuesday marked a terrific first step toward that end.”

By Judy McSpadden

Let’s play “Guess this Sport.”

  1. This sport was started by men in the late 1800s.
  2. It involves teamwork.
  3. It requires running, muscle strength, and flexibility.
  4. It requires an intense time commitment for training and competition.
  5. It is recognized as a sport by the International Olympic Committee.
  6. It has the highest rate of catastrophic injury for females, according to the Journal of Pediatrics.

Until you read No. 5, you probably thought the answer was football, but football hasn’t yet been recognized by the IOC as a sport. Boxing is an Olympic sport with a high rate of injuries, but it doesn’t involve teamwork.

Are you ready for the answer? Cheerleading. That’s right, an activity that many don’t even acknowledge as a sport has continued to evolve since young men in the early 1900s joined yell squads to cheer on their college sports teams.

Women, who started cheerleading in the 1920s, began to dominate the sport during World War II, when men went off to fight. Today, according to Sport.com, there are 3.4 million registered cheerleaders in the United States. Of those, a recent survey by the National Federation of State High School Associations reports that 400,000 people are cheerleading in American high school programs.

Over the last year, Our Military Kids has awarded over 128 grants for cheerleading, a combination of gymnastics (for which OMK gave 478 grants) and dance (for which OMK gave 381 grants).

Two OMK cheerleading grant recipients, Zoey and Raegan Lawson, just recently competed at the 2017 Summit, a varsity all-star cheerleading and dance championship in Orlando, Florida.

Eleven-year-old Raegan’s team placed tenth out of 80 at Disney. That’s not bad, considering her team ran against 780 teams to get to Disney in the first place.

Zoey and Raegan Lawson

Zoey, age 12, competed with a dance team. Her team placed twelfth in hip hop and fifth in POM dancing.

Raegan and Zoey received OMK grants after their dad, Army Staff Sgt. Doug Lawson, was injured in a roadside explosion in Iraq in 2008. Joining the Army immediately after high school, Doug had served more than 15 years when he was medically retired. His wife, Jessica Lawson, said the OMK grants were invaluable to helping the girls continue to do what they loved.

Doug still deals with complications from a TBI, but, according to Jessica, cheerleading has opened doors to supportive friendships with other families.

“Gym friends are my best friends,” said Jessica. “We travel together; we spend holidays together. The guys hang out outside of cheer.”

Jessica said Doug’s good sense of humor has helped him deal with his challenges and enjoy life with his three daughters (Their eldest is 18.). “He knows that when you have daughters, at times you’re going to go to work with glitter on your face,” she said. “He once made a bet with the girls and lost, so he had to wear a tutu to a competition.”

The Lawson Family

Jessica said the difficult part of the cheer sport is the expense. With Doug unable to work, and Jessica working as a nurse, “a big part of what we go through has been financial. Without grants like OMK’s, our girls would not be able to participate,” she said.

Jessica said the key to keeping life as stable as possible is to just appreciate every day and to make sure the girls have activities.

 

 

 

McLean, VA — Our Military Kids will host its first-ever symposium highlighting children of wounded warriors, June 6, in Washington DC.

“It’s a gathering whose time has come,” said Linda Davidson, Our Military Kids’ executive director. “While it’s wonderful to have seen support go out to wounded warriors and their caregivers since 9/11, it’s just as important to focus on the children who make sacrifices every day. When a military parent is injured, kids experience fear, disrupted routines, secondary PTSD, and depression.”

Attendees will include clinicians, researchers, policy advocates, and family members from across the country – key players in the sphere of wounded warriors, who will discuss challenges of wounded warrior children, lessons learned, and approaches for moving forward in a unified way.

The keynote speaker is Dr. Stephen Cozza, professor of psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University. Dr. Cozza, a psychiatrist in the U.S. Army for 25 years, has focused on the clinical and community response to trauma and the impact of deployment and combat injury, illness, and death on military service members and their families.

The keynote address will be followed by panel discussions with wounded warriors and their family members, as well as participants from Harvard University, Military Child and Education Coalition, Rand Corporation and more.

“What we’re after is a unity of vision,” said Davidson. “Those of us working in the wounded warrior world can use a more integrated focus, more cohesive treatments – call it what you will. Tuesday marks a first step toward that end.”

If you have questions about this post, please contact Judy McSpadden, 703-734-6654.